The Abyss
by Anonemuss14
Summary: Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. -Friedrich Nietzsche
1. Chapter 1

**The Abyss - Chapter 1**

**Disclaimer: standard assurance of non-ownership. Will apply for all chapters.**

* * *

The city of Vale, as befitting the largest and busiest city on the continent of Vytal, is normally full of life. For all hours of the day there are people bustling about and living their lives; that is, until the sun sets. By unspoken rule, the busy streets empty and the denizens seek shelter in their homes. Perhaps it is some distant memory of the time when the Grimm plagued humanity, perhaps it is fear of what is yet to come, but the fact remains that you would be hard pressed to find any sign of life in Vale after dusk.

However, on one night in the early days of autumn, there is one person wandering the streets of the darkened city; a young girl in a red cloak and hood.

"Weiss, stop worrying," the girl said into her scroll. "I've taken care of everything."

"Mm-hmm," a skeptical voice said from the device. "You're sure? You didn't forget the spare parts for Crescent Rose, or the Dust canisters I needed you to pick up?"

"Weiss, I've got it," the girl said in exasperation. "I might be immature sometimes—"

"Sometimes?" Weiss intoned.

"But I'm not completely irresponsible," the girl continued, ignoring her friend's remark.

Weiss sighed on the other end. "I know, Ruby," she said sincerely. "I just worry that you won't get these things done... because they would hamper me as well." This last part was said quickly, like it was an afterthought.

Ruby rolled her eyes at her partner's attitude. Even after all they'd been through, Weiss just had to keep up her ice queen façade. "Sure, whatever you say," she replied sarcastically.

"Just get back to Beacon," Weiss said/commanded. "Classes start tomorrow and I will not be held back because you took your time doing errands."

Although many students remained on campus year-round, and subsequently continued with their lessons as if nothing had happened, the start of summer was technically the end of official classes and students could leave to visit family if they so desired.

Such was the case of Pyrrha Nikos, who had traveled back to Mistral to see her family and brought her leader and (unofficial) boyfriend, Jaune Arc, with her.

"Alright, Weiss, I'll be there in..." Ruby trailed off as something else caught their attention. Further down the silent street, a lone figure stood beneath a broken streetlight. Nothing about the stranger's features could be seen, as he or she was little more than a silhouette, but Ruby could clearly see the pair of glowing red eyes staring back at her.

"Ruby, what's going on?" Weiss asked from the scroll.

"I'll have call you back," Ruby said softly, her eyes never leaving the stranger before her.

"Ruby—" Weiss started to say before Ruby terminated the call. Tucking the scroll into a slot on her belt, Ruby carefully placed a hand on Crescent Rose, ready to draw it at the slightest sign of danger.

"Who are you?" Ruby asked the figure. No sooner had the words left her mouth that the stranger's right hand glowed red and a blast of crimson energy raced towards the huntress-in-training.

Reacting equally as fast, Ruby disappeared in a flurry of rose petals, causing the energy to explode harmlessly against the empty road and set several of the petals aflame.

Peeking out from behind the building she took shelter in, Ruby tried to evaluate the situation. Her attacker was still standing beneath the streetlight, but they were looking around now, searching for her. Ruby ducked behind the wall again as the scarlet eyes approached her direction.

Thinking quickly, she drew Crescent Rose from its holster and, as an afterthought, placed her bag of supplies against the wall. It wouldn't do to survive this encounter only to have Weiss kill her for not bringing what she needed.

Checking to see that the hybrid weapon was full of ammo, Ruby jumped out from her hiding place and unfolded Crescent Rose into its shotgun form. She fired off two quick shots before jumping into more cover.

Unfortunately, her opponent reacted faster than humanly possible and intercepted both of the high-caliber rounds with a single blast of crimson energy.

Now aware of their prey's location, the attacker blasted more red energy towards where Ruby was hiding. Jumping into the street again, Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose to its scythe form and used it recoil to launch herself towards the scarlet-eyed figure. She aimed a powerful horizontal strike, intent on cleaving her opponent in two, but the attacker ducked underneath the massive blade and shot their fist forward.

Ruby could do nothing as she blasted with what she could only describe as thousands of volts of electricity and was launched back several meters to lay on the ground in agony.

Even through the haze of pain, she managed to roll to the side and avoid another bolt of energy. But, she knew that it would do no good. She was helpless as she saw the figure's arm glow red again, sparks of energy flashing in the darkness.

Ruby braced herself for what was to come, but was surprised when the figure hesitated. The red glow faded and they stumbled, as if struck by an unseen force. The stranger stared into Ruby's eyes for a moment longer, silver clashing with scarlet, before turning and dashing off into the darkness.

Ruby remained on the ground and tried to regain her breath. Her midsection began to ache as the pain returned and the adrenaline ran out. Careful not to agitate her body, she rose to a kneeling position and folded Crescent Rose back into its holstered form.

Taking slow, measured steps, Ruby made her way back to her bag of supplies. As she bent to pick it up, she noticed that her scroll was buzzing from its spot on her belt. Knowing who it probably was, she was unsurprised when there were a dozen missed calls from Weiss.

"Hello?" she said wearily as she accepted the most recent call. She instantly regretted it.

"RUBY ROSE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!" Weiss screeched into the younger girl's ear.

Wincing at the volume of her friend's voice, Ruby tried her best to explain what had happened. Afterwards, Weiss was silent for several moments.

"Weiss?" Ruby asked hesitantly.

"Get back as quickly as you can," the Schnee heiress said stoically. "We need to tell Professor Ozpin about this."

Weiss ended the call and Ruby sighed again. Picking up her bag and taking one last look around at the carnage wrought by the stranger; Ruby turned and continued the long trek back towards Beacon.

'What a wonderful start to the new year,' Ruby thought grimly.

* * *

**I'm going to be completely honest with you right now. This story will not have a regular update schedule and is liable to not be completed at all. **

**This is just a warning to any who enjoy this story that it might just end inexplicably.**

**That's all for now. Chapter 2 will go up... whenever it goes up.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Abyss - Chapter 2**

* * *

It was over an hour later that Ruby finally made it back to Beacon. The pain had faded away by then, but she knew that she would have a bruise from that punch.

As she walked up the main avenue, she was surprised to see Weiss sit next to the statue of the Hunters. She was tapping her foot and drumming her fingers against her arm. To most people the Schnee Company heiress would have appeared to be impatient, but Ruby knew her partner well enough to recognize concern instead.

"Weiss, have you been waiting here the entire time?" Ruby asked. She had expected for the older girl to be in their dorm, or perhaps already at the headmaster's office.

Weiss jumped a little at Ruby's question. "Ruby, don't sneak up on me like that!" She snapped at her partner.

Ruby frowned at the response, but didn't say anything about it. "You said we needed to talk to Professor Ozpin, right?"

Weiss took a deep breath as she stood and wiped off her dress as if there was some imperfection on it. "Yes, he needs to be informed of what happened," she said professionally.

Ruby gave an exaggerated sigh. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?" she whined. "I really just want to get some sleep."

Weiss glared at her partner. "This isn't something we can just let go of, Ruby," Weiss said evenly, trying to not get frustrated. "Ozpin would want to know about this."

"Know about what, Ms. Schnee?" a new voice said. Both girls jumped back and had to stifle screams as their headmaster seemingly appeared out of thin air.

Despite the late hour, the headmaster of Beacon was dressed in his usual black and green outfit with his cane in hand. Oddly enough, he didn't have his usual mug of coffee with him. Ozpin tried not to laugh at his students' reactions, but he couldn't prevent a small, amused smile from breaking through.

Ruby glared at the older man. "Professor, you shouldn't just sneak up on people like that," she said sternly. Weiss scoffed at the younger girl's protests.

"Like you're one to talk, Ruby," she said.

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Weiss, I didn't 'sneak up' on you, you were just distracted because you were worried about me."

Weiss started to respond, but instead simply huffed indignantly and turned her back on the scythe-wielder. Throughout the entire exchange, Ozpin had been watching the duo with growing amounts of amusement. He finally released a small chuckle and brought his students' attention back onto him.

"So, you had something to tell me?" he prompted.

Ruby tried to speak, but Weiss cut her off. "Yes sir, we wanted to inform you that Ruby was attacked earlier this evening," she said quickly.

Ozpin raised his eyebrows in what might have been surprise. "Really, do go on," he said.

Weiss looked at Ruby who in turn glared at the heiress, but sighed and started to explain what had happened.

"Well, I was out picking up some last minute supplies that we needed tomorrow," she began with a gesture towards the bag beside her. "Weiss had called and was making sure that I hadn't missed anything, but otherwise there was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, I saw this… I don't even know. I just looked up and there they were."

Ozpin interrupted. "Who is 'they'?" he asked.

Ruby shrugged helplessly. "I don't really know. I never saw any distinguishing features," she replied while staring at the ground.

Beside her, Weiss nudged her with an elbow. "Except for…" she muttered.

Ruby glared at her again, but looked up into Ozpin's eyes and spoke uneasily. "I did see that they had glowing red eyes."

Ozpin contemplated this for a moment; then motioned with his free hand for her to continue.

"There's not much else," Ruby said. "They just attacked me out of nowhere, and I fought back. The odd thing is that they could have finished me off, but just ran away instead."

Ozpin was silent for a moment before glancing up at the fractured moon, as if it held the answers to the questions he had. Finally, he turned back to the girls.

"Ruby, explain exactly how this… person fought," he said.

Ruby furrowed her brow in concentration as she tried to recall had transpired but an hour earlier. "They didn't move around very much, if at all, choosing instead to just stand still and blast beams of red energy at me."

Ozpin drummed his fingers against his cane thoughtfully. His facial expressions gave away nothing, but the two huntresses-in-training could practically feel the uncertainty rolling off of him. "Hmm, thank you for sharing this with me," he said absentmindedly and turned to leave.

Ruby and Weiss exchanged a glance before Weiss called out to him. "Professor, what should we do about this?" she asked.

Ozpin didn't break stride. "Whatever you feel is necessary," he said emotionlessly. "It's as I said at your initiation: don't hesitate to crush all that is in your path."

Weiss and Ruby exchanged another glance. Ruby just shrugged while Weiss sighed and began walking back to their dorm. "Come on, Ruby, let's get some sleep. We need to get up early tomorrow."

Ruby picked up her bag once more and followed along with one more glance at the retreating form of Professor Ozpin.

'What aren't you telling us?' she thought.

* * *

Their dorm was empty when they arrived. Yang and Blake, who had both been gone for the last week, would be returning tomorrow with the newest group of incoming students.

Yang had gone on a short vacation with a few friends of hers to the resort town of Tranquility along the southern coast of Vytal. While Blake gave a very limited explanation of her plans, simply stating: "I'm going to see some old friends."

Weiss was suspicious of that response, never truly getting over the knowledge of Blake's former affiliation with the White Fang. However, she had yet to voice her concerns and Ruby didn't want to breach the delicate subject any more than was necessary.

"Weiss, who do you think it was?" Ruby asked, as she lay awake on the top bunk of their bed.

"I don't know, Ruby," Weiss said sleepily. "But, I'm sure that we'll find out eventually." This was clearly an indication to stop talking and go to sleep, but Ruby chose to do otherwise.

"Could it have been Cinder?" Ruby inquired. "I doubt she's forgiven us for blowing up all of her Dust and sending Roman to jail."

Weiss groaned. "Ruby, I said we'll figure it out later," she snapped. "Just go to sleep. I seem to remember you complaining earlier about _me_ keeping _you_ from going to sleep."

Ruby sighed and rolled over. "Goodnight then," she said softly. Weiss was already asleep.

Ruby remained awake for some afterwards, wondering what had truly happened earlier and what was to come before following her partner's example and slipping into the realm of dreams


	3. Chapter 3

**The Abyss - Chapter 3**

**I would like to apologize in advance for any butchery of Nora's character that occurs. This is my first time trying to write her and I may have exaggerated her energetic personality a bit much. Again, I apologize if anyone finds offense there.**

* * *

The next morning saw Ruby and Weiss, along with Nora and Ren, standing near the airship docking area waiting for their respective teammates.

Ruby and Weiss were both silent, Weiss from her natural professionalism and Ruby from exhaustion; she hadn't slept well last night.

Ren was similarly stoic, being both naturally calm and tired from lack of sleep. He claims that Nora sleepwalks sometimes and he has to stop her from burning down the school, or worse.

In stark contrast, Nora was bouncing around joyfully and singing about being the queen of a castle. Ren occasionally had to steer her away from the edge of the cliffs, but otherwise allowed her to frolic as she pleased.

They had been waiting for only a few minutes, but boredom was quickly taking root in Ruby's tired mind. She tried to not complain, knowing it would only annoy her partner, but couldn't take it.

"When are they getting here?" she said in what she hoped was an even tone and not a high-pitched whine.

Luckily, Weiss didn't object and glanced at clock on her scroll. "Five minutes," she stated.

Ruby sighed; she hated just standing around and waiting. Maybe she should go talk to Nora; that would at least be... interesting

"Hi Nora," Ruby said as cheerfully as she could while also bracing herself for what was to come.

"Hi Ruby how are you I'm fine I'm SO excited that we're starting our second year at Beacon it's like only yesterday we were going through initiation except it wasn't 'cause that was a long time ago but now we're here and not the new kids anymore and it's going to be awesome and we'll eat pancakes and break legs and..." Nora continued on without the need to take breaths as Ruby stood there awkwardly.

Though she was by no means unfamiliar with Nora's behavior, she normally wasn't the one it was being directed towards. The only other time the two of them had had a conversation where it was just the two of them was when Ruby had asked about Nora's hammer Magnhild. Long story short, Ruby didn't make getting into a one-on-one conversation with Nora a priority.

Beside her, Ren gave her soft pat on the shoulder, as if to say, 'good luck'.

"...then we'll have big party and everything will pink and the sloths will— oh look at the birds!" Nora said excitedly.

Ren looked up at where Nora was pointing. "Those aren't birds, Nora," he stated.

"Really? Then what are they?" she asked, making binoculars with her hands as if it would help her see better.

"They're the airships with all the new students on them," Ren said patiently.

"Oh, okay," Nora replied as though this was new to her. Then again, it could very have been; you never knew with Nora.

The airships steadily came into view and appeared just as massive as the last time Ruby had seen them. They docked with slow, practiced movements and the doors opened to reveal dozens of new students in a wide variety of sizes and colors. Ruby didn't see her sister and friends immediately, but she knew that they had to be on there.

"Come on, let's not waste time waiting for them," Weiss said as she walked towards the throng of Beacon applicants. Ruby and Ren followed her after a moment of hesitation with Nora skipping merrily behind them.

Ruby had just caught a glimpse of gold that had to be Yang near the airship when one of the new students almost ran into her. Ruby fell to the ground and the student stumbled before steadying herself.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said softly and reached out a hand to help Ruby up.

"It's alright, no harm do-" Ruby stopped speaking as her hand touched a metal surface instead of flesh. Looking up, she saw that the offered hand was encased in a metal gauntlet with only the fingers exposed. Continuing to look up, she eventually looked into the yellow eyes of the student.

Shaking her head to refocus herself, Ruby grasped the offered hand and got to her feet. The girl before her was slightly taller than her with straight black hair that fell past her shoulders and pale skin. She wore a bright yellow shirt and dark gray pants with a yellow stripe down the sides of both legs and gray boots. Over this she wore a dark gray duster with a yellow stripe down the right side of the front and yellow stripes running down the sleeves from the shoulders. The sleeves ended at the elbows with the rest of the arms being encased in matching steel gauntlets. A katana was slung over the girl's shoulder with the handle being visible over her shoulder. Ruby also noticed an odd symbol on her right shoulder as well.

"Thanks for helping me up," Ruby said after looking over the new girl.

The girl shrugged slightly. "Well, I did knock you down," she said quietly.

Ruby didn't really know how to respond to that, so she went with introductions. "Right... um, I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose," she said, holding out a hand to shake.

The girl looked at the hand uncertainly for a moment before lightly grasping it. "Teresa," she almost whispered.

The two entered an awkward silence, as neither knew what to say.

"Well, it was nice to meet you," Teresa said as she began to walk away.

"Oh, nice to meet you too," Ruby called out to the retreating figure. Teresa gave no indication that she had heard it.

"So, who's your friend?" asked a familiar voice.

"Yang!" Ruby cheered, spinning around and enveloping her sister in a hug.

Yang was taken aback by her younger sister's enthusiasm, but was quick to reciprocate. "It's good to see you too, Ruby," she said. "But I wasn't gone for that long."

"I know," Ruby replied, releasing the older girl. "But when your only for a whole week is Weiss…"

"Hey!" Weiss said indignantly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ruby raised her hands in surrender, but there was still a mischievous smile on her face. "I'm just kidding, Weiss," she explained. "Learn to take a joke."

Weiss glared at her partner coldly, but chose not to reply. Instead, she turned to the newly arrived Blake and asked a question she'd been wondering for some time.

"So, where were you?" Weiss tried to not sound accusatory when asking it, but it came out that way anyway.

Blake sighed. "I told you, I was with friends," she replied dryly. "And no, they weren't part of the White Fang."

"I never said that they were," Weiss said.

Blake wanted to say something to that, but decided against it and walked over to Ruby. "So, how have things been on this end?" she asked her leader.

Ruby, after asking for and being denied a hug from the cat Faunus, gave a rough synopsis of the last week; however, she chose to leave out the details about her being attacked. This didn't go unnoticed by Weiss.

"Nothing went wrong then? Nothing at all?" Yang asked innocently.

Ruby hesitated only a moment before quickly shaking her head. "Nope, everything was fine," she said.

Blake gave her an odd look, but Yang seemed to buy. "Well, that's amazing," she said, throwing an arm around Ruby's shoulders. "I swear, the trouble you get into when I'm not around."

Ruby laughed nervously and Blake glanced at Weiss. Her look clearly asked: 'What happened and why is Ruby hiding it?'

"We'll tell you later," Weiss whispered. She didn't really know why they were hiding it either, but she was going to play along for now.

Some distance away from Team RWBY stood the reunited Team JNPR. Ren had greeted Jaune and Pyrrha with his typical, emotionless 'Welcome back', while Nora went into an in-depth explanation of everything that had happened since they left.

"We had pancakes the next morning and they were SO good they even had the red syrup I like and after breakfast we…" Jaune and Pyrrha shared a sideways glance, having forgotten how truly energetic Nora could be.

The two teams continued catching up on their separate adventures until Ruby and Jaunes' scrolls buzzed, alerting them that classes would begin soon.

Gathering up their respective luggage, both teams headed back to their dorms to prepare for the first day of their second year at Beacon.


End file.
